Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C.PK) Credit Suisse 24th Annual Financial Services Forum Call January 14, 2023 9:25 AM ET
Company Participants
Shahmir Khaliq – Global Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions
Conference Call Participants
Susan Katzke – Credit Suisse
Susan Katzke
Okay. Good morning, again. Welcome to our next session at the Credit Suisse Financial Services Forum.
For those of you joining us via webcast, I’m Susan Katzke. I cover the large-cap banks for Credit Suisse. And I’m pleased to welcome Citi back to the conference, and I’m privileged to have here with me Shahmir Khaliq, Citi’s Global Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions.
Shahmir, you are a 30-year veteran of Citigroup at the helm of TTS for over — just over two years now. We’re going to do this as a fireside chat. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover as TTS is really so central to the Citi franchise. So, let’s get started.
Question-and-Answer Session
Susan Katzke
It’s great to have you presenting at the conference. This is the first time we’ve had you here. Maybe you can give us a little bit about yourself and your background?
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. Susan, first of all, thank you so much for being here. My apologies for my voice. I have just recovered from a flu. So, it’s good to be in Miami, it’s cleared the sinuses a bit.
Firstly, it is my first time at CS, but I’ve been at Citi for about 30 years. And in those 30 years, I’ve kind of done the full tour, which is first 15 years in banking. My last job in banking was running corporate finance, oil and gas covering Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa in the corporate bank. Then I ran a bunch of countries for about seven years. So, I was in the network. I was in Central Europe. My last job was running a bunch of countries out of — based out of Prague in Central Europe.
And then I moved to New York, and I’ve been about five or six years in markets running our Investor Services business in North America. And then I’ve gotten very closely allied with the services side of the business when I ran Direct Custody and Clearing business globally for about three years. And then I’ve been part of the TTS franchise now, not just for two, but actually three years, because I ran operations and technology for TTS for a year before taking on the TTS business.
So, I know the business intimately. I know the bank. I know the network. And most importantly, I think our job here is really to make sure that we project the power, the strength of that franchise into our clients and really for the benefit of the shareholders.
Susan Katzke
So, let’s start then with a brief overview of the services operations, including both Security Services and TTS, the size of the businesses, the scope and how they fit into Citi’s refreshed strategy?
Shahmir Khaliq
So, firstly, let’s talk about what services is. So, it’s really combines two businesses; Treasury and Trade Solutions as one business, and then our Security Services business on the other side. And together, these businesses produce approximately — in 2022, we produced almost $16 billion in revenue; $12 billion in TTS and $4 billion in Security Services.
The TTS business is effectively all of the liquidity, payments backbone, the entire working capital financing side of the business, so across 95 markets. It’s the biggest institutional payments network in the industry, connected to almost 270 direct clearing platforms across the globe.
And then, secondly, on the Security Services side, where we have a few businesses allow — basically global custody, direct custody and our agency and trust business. And even there, our direct custody and clearing network is the biggest institutional proprietary network in the industry with 63 markets.
So, as we bring those two together, we cover a host of clients from the corporate space to the financial institution space to the non-bank financial institution space, the investor community as well, so in the bank and the broker-dealer community as well.
So, it’s a very diverse bunch of clients across these two businesses. And if you look at the total aggregate relative proportion and size of the business, we’re about 21% of Citigroup’s top-line. And as you think about Citi and the future direction for Citi, as Citi shed some of the legacy franchises, the proportion, the percentage of this revenue stream should only increase as a proportion of the total revenue for Citi.
Susan Katzke
Okay. So then let’s talk about within that, what are the products and services that make TTS truly indispensable to the clients? And then, let’s take that into the perspective of the opportunity with existing Citi clients who are not yet TTS clients?
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. So, I think it’s a great question. Firstly, I’d say ’22, we had very strong momentum in the business. So, we — and I’m sure we’ll talk about that in a second, but really our business is built around, what I would call, three particular tenets, what TTS does.
As you think about our platform, first and foremost, it’s the breadth of the platform. It’s the 95 markets, which are absolutely mission-critical for us to achieving what we need to achieve.
But then secondly, it’s the capabilities that we built on this — around this network over the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years.
And then, the most important thing that I would say that underpins what TTS does and how we engage with our clients is really the relationships and the trust that we’ve built with these clients over multiple decades. So, if you think about the length of the relationships, it’s significant.
So, I would say those are the three kind of big tenets around how we think about our network.
The other thing I would say is we’ve got about 18,000 clients in our portfolio across both banking and the commercial bank side of it as well. And as you think about revenue distribution, they’re very much or so far have been an institutionally-focused business. Almost 90% of our revenues, the $12 billion or slightly north of $12 billion top-line that we produce, comes from the large institutional client set, with about 10% of that revenue coming from the smaller mid-market clients or the commercial bank, as we call it.
So, as we think about the future, I think there is considerable potential and opportunities to do far more with clients in both segments, which is the large institutional banking segments, the BCMA segments that we call it, Banking, Capital Markets and Advisory; and the mid-market segment, where our share of wallet is relatively small.
So, as you think about the overall institutional clients space, we have about 24,000 clients in the institutional space, about 18,000 clients in the TTS space. We’re fairly well penetrated in the institutional client segment.
And I would say of all the clients that deal with us, almost 85% to 90% of them buy multiple TTS products and services across multiple geographies. So that is what positions us really well. As we think about this client agenda, we feel particularly good about not just where we’re at, but also about the growth opportunity.
Susan Katzke
Okay. And so, then when we think about those products and services, which are the most significant — the largest of the TTS businesses? Is it the cash management, et cetera, in terms of the revenue and earnings contribution? What is everyone doing…
Shahmir Khaliq
Absolutely. So, I would say, as you think about our top-line, the top-line is really split in the following three or four ways.
First and foremost, we are a significant deposit taker for Citi and for the institutional bank. So almost 50% to 60% of our top-line is effectively driven by liquidity or NII.
Then another 25% of our top-line is driven by fees. These are fees that we originate from doing payments around the globe, whether domestic payments, cross-border payments, commercial card-driven payments, all of that comes within that 25% I talked about.
Then about 12% of revenue is from trade financing. So, we are one of the leading trade financing, the largest trade financing bank for the institutional client set in the space. So, 12% of our revenues come from the other side of the balance sheet, which is financing our clients across the globe.
And then about 5% of our top-line comes from providing trade services, opening up letters of credit, confirming letters of credit, doing guarantees for our clients across the globe.
So that’s how we’re positioned. 50% to 60% on the liquidity side. In the fallow years, you’ll probably see with lower NII, you’ll see a number close to 50%. Because 2022, we saw a significant pickup in rates, liquidity became a bigger proportion of the overall top-line. Payments fees, 25%, financing about 12%, and services about 5%.
Susan Katzke
Okay. I think that’s super helpful.
Shahmir Khaliq
And if I can just add, I think if you think the regional dispersal, we’re also a very dispersed business. Because we’re a global business, we really focus on making sure we are penetrating our clients’ wallets across the globe. As you think about our revenue, there’s very little concentration.
So, about 30% of our revenue comes from North America, slightly north of that. Just under 30% is in EMEA. And we generate in Asia somewhere close to low- to mid-20 percentage of our revenue. And then, LatAm rounds it up with about what I would call in the mid- to high-teens revenue.
So, fairly well dispersed business with four very critical revenue streams across the products I mentioned.
Susan Katzke
All of which really support the consistency of the earning power of this business.
So, let’s go to the KPIs, because in the March 2022 Investor Day just about a year ago now, there were key KPIs for this business that were detailed around deposits, clearing volumes, cross-border transaction values. And I’m curious, when you look at each of those KPIs, what are the objectives around those metrics that you’re working to achieve?
Shahmir Khaliq
So, I think first and foremost was the reason why we defined those KPIs because I just talked about it, if you look at our product split, it actually mirrors a lot of those drivers that we tried to show. One of the things we were very keen on for Investor Day was really to showcase and help the analyst community really project this business and be able to model this business.
So, what have we done on the deposit side, for example. Our deposits are up about 1%. I think we’re bucking the trend a little bit. We’re very much a client-driven and client-oriented business. So, our deposits are about 1%. On an ex-FX basis, we’re about 3%. So, we feel good about that metric that we put out there.
Secondly, if you look at our cross-border payment values, we talked about a mid- to high-percentage increase in transaction values. We hit an 11% number for the year. So again, we feel pretty good.
On the clearing side, we talked about a mid to high number as well. We were there between 2% and 3% on the average for 2022. Clearly, Russia sanctions had a little bit to do with the clearing side of the business.
And then, as you think about trade financing, which was not a driver we published. That’s again another critical driver. We were up about 40% from a trade distribution standpoint.
So, these are all drivers that feed into that revenue stream that I talked about. So, the one thing I would leave you with on those KPIs, we feel pretty good about those KPIs and what we did in ’22, we feel good about ’23 and where we’re positioned. And we think as you think about those drivers and where we’ve ended up after ’22, we think we’re about a year ahead of where we think we should have been. So, we continue to make progress on what we laid out from an Investor Day standpoint as well.
Susan Katzke
Perfect. So, taking that one step further, your performance, as you noted, was quite strong in 2022, and that continued through to the end of the year. How much of the momentum was macro-driven versus the result of business actions?
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. So, I would say, first and foremost, I think we generated close to 32% on a year-over-year basis top-line growth in our business, which was in line with what our expectations were, but we think we exceeded on certain accounts. As I mentioned already, I think if you think about where we ended up with cross-border transactional volumes, up about 11%. If you think about commercial card spend, we were up something like 49% in transaction values, which we felt pretty good about.
The other thing that I thought we did a particularly good job of was around trade distribution. So, as you think about some of the, what I would call, binding constraints that we, as a firm, were dealing with around RWA and managing RWA, the simple fact that we were able to ramp up about 40% from a trade distribution standpoint in the space really significantly helped not just our top-line, but also our return metrics as well.
So, as I said, I think it’s been mission-critical. We laid that out at the Investor Day. We’ve delivered on those core drivers that drove that revenue growth.
But one of the things I would also point out is that we’ve been very busy building out capabilities in our business. So, it’s not just about the client engagement piece, it’s not just about execution, it’s also thinking about how we think about capabilities. So, we’ve built out 24/7 clearing for U.S. dollars. We were the first bank in the U.S. to actually come out with that offering. It helps bank effectively run a clearing proposition in a U.S. dollar account at any point of time despite it being 4th of July or Thanksgiving in the U.S. So, it allows you to move money. It effectively allows us to become far more relevant and real time as we think about the future.
We came out with seven-day sweeps, again with the same concept around real-time, instant. You’ll hear that as I talk about, I mean, in our conversation. Our focus really is around some of those themes around real-time, instant, resiliency. And I think as we think about our go-forward strategy, I think these will be the key tenants as we think about that performance going into ’23 as well.
Susan Katzke
Well, that’s a perfect segue to the next question. So, putting the benefit of interest rates aside, does the current macro environment make it more difficult, less difficult to achieve those medium-term growth targets that you’re aiming for? And how do you expect to continue to gain market share? So, you’re a year ahead of plan, which just means we raised the bar on you, right? So, how do you keep this going?
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. My boss has raised the bar already, so we’ve redone some of the math. But there’s a couple of things I would say. I would say if you look back four, five, six years ago, you will see that our market share was around the 7%, 8% number. And as you look at third quarter market shares, you’ll see that we crossed the 10% number. So, we’ve gained share in the market. Obviously, shares oscillate, but our aspiration is to continue to build and gain share in the institutional space, and by definition, the mid-market space where we’re significantly underpenetrated.
As you talk about a macro environment, and we heard a little bit from some of the other prior speakers, first and foremost, because we operate in 96 markets on the ground with SME knowledge, expertise, connectivity with regulators, with clients, with financial market infrastructures, we think that puts us in the best position to help our clients in any environment. So — and I think Citi, particularly in the transaction services space, is at its best when our clients are under stress, and we can help them execute their business model in a stressed macro environment.
So, we actually feel that this stressed macro environment makes our clients think a little bit differently about their business model. They will think about concentrating. They will think about efficiencies, and that is where we play to our strengths, given the capabilities and the network we built out. So, as our clients — if you’ve got 20 banks providing you multiple service across a portfolio of 40, 50, 60 countries, if you want to consolidate and get pricing power, get pricing tension but have better execution around what you do, Citi comes to play.
So, from my standpoint, I think it’s a significant opportunity for us in how we see this macro environment play out and what’s going to happen over the next 12 to 24 months for us to continue to gain share as we think about the future.
The other bits of it will continue to be, as I said, we’ve gained share in the institutional space over the last three, four years. We expect to continue to do that in the short to medium term, given our client relationships and the capabilities we’ve built out. But I’m particularly excited also about the mid-market segment.
In the Investor Day, we talked a lot about Commercial Bank and how we’re building out that opportunity. Our relative market share is dwarfed by what some of our competitors have. And if you think about the future and if you think about what clients are looking to do, particularly the mid-market clients, everybody is looking to go global.
So, we’ve helped some of the large Fortune 500 companies go global over the last 10, 20, 30 years, and particularly in this new digital environment that we’re operating in, we think that there’s considerable potential to take all that we’ve done and built for the large Fortune 500 companies and use that for the benefit of the mid-market clients as well.
So, we think there’s opportunity despite a stressed macro environment, it helps us project our agenda on a go-forward basis as well.
Susan Katzke
Okay. So, I want to circle back and dig in on this market share a little bit. If we think about treasury services, in particular, it’s about $100 billion-plus wallet depending on whose estimates you use, the size of the wallet. And you and your money center bank peers, you gave us a 10% number a minute ago. I think of everyone generally the top three, four players having that 6% to 7% market share, and it’s been fairly sticky. And I’m curious how you see this. It sounds to me like you expect consolidating — accelerated consolidation of market share going forward. What are your actual market share aspirations from here? And do you expect the pace of consolidation to accelerate here?
Shahmir Khaliq
So, I think if you — firstly, if you look at some of the market data that’s available out there in the public domain, you’re going to see that move. If you look at the top players to the points you made, Susan, about the top players having a certain market share versus what you see at the other end of the scale, there is consolidation, let’s say, from what I would call a domestic player or a regional player, you’re seeing a share gain.
Even prior to 2022, a lot of the wallet share, given the rate environment, was kind of flat. It was flat to down, and some of the big banks were gaining share while you saw a slight loss of share for some of the folks at the other end of that scale. So, I think we absolutely expect there to be some degree of move from the right-hand side of the page, let’s say, to the left-hand side of the page. So, that consolidation continues. So, I would say that’s part and parcel.
The other piece of the puzzle, if I look at some of our core metrics. So, for example, if you look at wins, our quarter four wins for last year, that we finished, were up about 20% on a year-over-year basis. So, we saw a very strong momentum in client activity and client engagement.
Secondly, as you think about what we do on the trade finance side, we’ve got about 86,000 suppliers on our platform. So, we have this ecosystem where we don’t just bank the Fortune 500 companies, but we bank all their suppliers and try to bank all their distributors as well.
So, as you think about this trade finance engine, coupled with the liquidity and the payment engine that we’ve got, you’ve got this ecosystem which allows us to propagate and really engage with our clients in a far more meaningful way, particularly as this consolidation happens.
So, I think, generally speaking, I would say, a lot of what we’ve achieved this year, you’ll probably remember in Investor Day, we had talked about in the large institutional space, we had talked about a 50 basis points to 75 basis point share gain in the medium term. We’ve actually gained that share in year one. So, we — given Q3 data, we’re at 70 basis points of share gains as of Q3. Obviously, with rates as they oscillate those share gains, some of them would come down, some of them could go up. But aspirationally, we’re already there.
So, I would say we were going to continue to hold that particular share gain number to where we want to be. I’m not going to go out and say that we’re going to be significantly more. So, I won’t put a number out there, but I am sharing with you that we’ve kind of — we’re kind of there from a share gain standpoint, what we’d already said on Investor Day. And hopefully, we’ll continue to add to that share gain as we think about the future.
So, lots for us to do, lots of opportunity. We’ve met what we said on Investor Day. I think on the mid-market side, particularly in the commercial bank, I think we’re also about a year ahead of plan. We gained some share to what we’ve laid out. We said we talked about an incremental share of 25 basis points. We’ve gained a portion of that. We think we’re about a year ahead to the four-year plan that we had laid out. In the institutional space, we’ve already got to that share. So, I would say, much more to do, but a significant upside for us as we think about the next two, three, four years.
Susan Katzke
Perfect. So, let’s switch gears a little bit. And I think we understand the business, the share gains have accelerated. When you’re talking to clients, what are you hearing from them in terms of are they focused on using a global provider, given the macro and the markets? Is it the services? Is it the resilience and the cyber risk management? What are you hearing from clients as they choose to do more with Citi?
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. I would say — it’s a great question. I would say it’s all of that and more. So, I think first and foremost, I’d say our clients have generally built up fairly strong balance sheets. And so, if you look at even our financial filings that we’ve done, you’ll see that our cost of credit in the institutional space was minimal. So, as you think about our engagement with our clients, we — our clients have strong balance sheets, but they continue to be worried about what we heard in some of the prior conversation. They continue to be worried about rates, inflation, I think geopolitical disconnects and, frankly speaking, the potential prospects of a recession and how that impacts their business model. So, I would say those are the three, four, what I would call, macro factors that all our clients that I’m hearing consistently across the board.
Clearly, we heard about valuations being down, that impacts our clients’ business models as well or some of their model in particular because, as I mentioned earlier, we bank corporates, we bank financial institutions, but we also have a large fintech practice, and we focus on that particular space as well to basically keep us on our toes and basically drive our capability building agenda.
But the other thing that we hear from our clients is really around innovation. Our clients are interested in understanding what are the new technological developments and how can they use them for the benefit of either running a better treasury, their cash flow management, their working capital financing. So, they’re very focused on that. Plus, they’re really thinking about some of the new technologies that are rolling out to say, how do I experiment that either in the treasury space or in my business development space.
So, I would say our clients continue to be actively engaged with us. I talked about client momentum and what we are seeing through, come through already in our pipes. But that’s one of the things that we continue to stay engaged on, and that helps us drive a lot of our capability building agenda.
So, if you think about what we’ve done over the last four, five years, our clients have talked about just in time or making payment — instant payments. And we had — we were seeing this entire e-commerce thread development. So, we talked about building out an instant payment network, which we’ve built out now over the last five or six years. So, it effectively helped grow our business model from doing, what I would call, pure treasury management to helping some of the more, what I would call, web-enabled companies like a food delivery service or a cab hailing service to effectively allow them to pay their staff, their delivery teams around the globe, their drivers around the globe. So, we’ve actually kept up.
So, as our clients have thought of their business models, we’ve thought of our capability build. So, as you think of our revenue stream and the growth in our revenue stream, it’s been helping treasuries manage their cash flows, their financing better, but then also build up new revenue streams as our clients have challenge their business models and develop new streams of revenue. It allowed us to develop new streams of revenue for ourselves by building new capabilities.
So, I think that client engagement piece is actually mission-critical for us. The closer we stay to our clients — some of these clients are the smartest folks on the planet. The closer we stay close to our clients, it helps us project that capability building agenda much further across our 95-country network.
Susan Katzke
That makes sense. So, let’s switch gears to transformation, which we’ve obviously heard Jane and Mark talk about the benefits of Citi’s transformation to the broader organization. Let’s talk about how transformation touches TTS and the benefits you’re seeing from it.
Shahmir Khaliq
So first and foremost, I think I would say just for the benefit of your audience, I would say, transformation is the Number One priority for everybody at Citi. And so, as we think about the future of this firm, it’s really mission-critical for us to execute on our transformation agenda and actually get it right over the next 12, 24, 36 months.
And as we look at our transformation agenda and to give you a few examples, for example, if we think about the work we’re doing, we’re undertaking on the data side, the work we’re undertaking on the control side and then therefore, the impact that, that will have on our platforms, I think it will be significantly uplifting for the firm as we think about these investments.
And so, for example, if you think about a loan or processing a loan, the process of how we processed the loan 12 months ago is going to be very radically different to what it’s going to be in the next 24 to 36 months. How we think about reporting around liquidity and capital efficiency, we should see significant improvement in that as well. And then, as we think about our operational and platform resiliency, that should significantly improve as well.
So, I would say it’s the Number One priority. I think there are aspects of the transformation program that go beyond and therefore, have significant benefit for the firm over the next three to five years. So it’s something we need to actually execute, deliver on, and you should see the benefits of it in the coming months and years.
Susan Katzke
And presumably for TTS, this is one way where you hold your operating margins, if not improve upon them?
Shahmir Khaliq
Absolutely. And I would say in addition to what we’re doing in transformation plus how we’re attacking the entire technology spend, our spending in technology, I talked about that, was up about 40% over the last 2.5 years. So, I think you heard that from some of the prior speakers as well, the tech spend. So, our aspiration is to reduce the number of applications that we have to improve the resiliency and the stability of the platform that we have, to increase the scalability of the platform that we have, to increase the capability of the platform that we have. So, I think all of that should be a multiplier effect to how we think about our platform, our business over the next three to four years.
Susan Katzke
Perfect. And we touched on this a fair bit in the beginning, but I want to go back and make sure we’re very clear on this. When we think about how TTS is connected to the rest of Citi, and where you see the key synergies across the broader Citi with TTS?
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. So that’s a great question. And coming from a banking background and a market background and a country background, it’s a subject that’s kind of near and dear to my heart, is that we, first and foremost, we’re entirely connected to all of the businesses at Citi, and I’ll walk you through a couple of examples in a second. But we’re entirely connected.
As you think about, first and foremost, what does TTS do? We’re effectively the front door to Citi. So, if you think of a mid-market client that walks in the door and says, “I want to do business with Citi today.” We’re out there offering them a working capital product. We’re out there offering to take in the liquidity. We’re out there offering to make payments for them, payments to their suppliers, payments to their distributors, payments to their employees and really — rather payments from their distributors, payment to their employees. And then we finance their book as well.
So, as you think about that relationship and as that relationship grows, it allows us to put FX into the conversation. It allows us to put — as this client continues to engage with Citi, it allows us to bring capital markets into the conversation as the client thinks about expanding the source of their size and scope of their balance sheet.
And then, it also allows us to then think about how we work with our consumer bank, and whether it’s getting the sponsors of that mid-market client to bank with our wealth management, our High Net Worth team or whether it’s working with the consumer bank with our significant presence in the card space and our Citi retail services to think about how do we help our clients revenue-raising agenda, particularly that we’ve got a large market-leading cards business as well. So, I would say it’s entirely connected.
One of the products that I think is really a flagship product for us is really our leading cross-border payments business. Because if you think about cross-border payments, a product that we have called WorldLink, our engagement with FX is entirely assimilated into a singular pipe. So, when a client transacts with us, they see a completely assimilated singular client experience around a payment that embeds FX into it, embeds the right spreads into it. And so, effectively, we make it seamless for the client to transact with us. So — and hence, that’s why we built up that leadership position in the industry.
So, I would say there’s a lot more to do, but across banking, capital markets, commercial bank, FX, consumer bank, we try and make sure that we take all of the opportunities that a client presents and work with our partners to project Citi into the client’s wallet.
Susan Katzke
So, I mean, we’ve kind of — we’ve covered this in some of your answers, but I just want to make sure it’s super clear to everybody. When we think about how you’re positioned competitively, where do you see and what would you say is the real key competitive advantage that TTS brings to the table?
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. I would say — I’ll go back to what I said earlier. I think first and foremost, I think it’s the trust and the client relationships we have. But I would also say that as you think about that trust and the client relationships, what’s really imperative is as our clients’ business models evolve, you’ve got to be able to be building capabilities and demonstrate to clients that you’re building capabilities to keep up with their evolving business model.
And the third piece of the puzzle is really in the network. It’s to say if we have a 95-country network and one of the conversations that I love to have with clients is, “I’m helping you in country X, where you’re not going to get any other global bank to help you in. If I’m helping you in country X, I would like to get a peek into your significantly larger, either North American, European or Asia wallet as well.” So, it allows us to have conversations across a broader suite of opportunities and allows us to continue to, therefore, get a relative market position with each client, which is outsized with the size of the credit exposure that we’re undertaking.
So that is why, effectively, Susan, you see some of the slightly higher returns you see in the business, because we are then able to add value for the clients, not just from a capital extension standpoint, but also from connecting the network standpoint. So, I would say, it’s network, it’s capabilities and the client trust and engagement that we’ve built up over time that helps us to project it.
I’ll give you an example. There’s a significantly large tech company that all of us know and use. And they deal with us across 60 markets where we are effectively every day, we are the depositor bank for their liquidity. We are also building our pooling and zero-balance capabilities, so that they can use their liquidity across their multiple corporate centers and allow them to move the cash around to the best of their usage and effectively do it in real-time basis or just-in-time basis. And then, we make all their payments for them. So, we’re intrinsically embedded into their treasury management, their employee engagement, their distributor and supplier engagement model. And that makes us very sticky.
The one thing I would say is, I think as you think about our business model, we’re also embedded into their ERP systems, which is effectively all of their accounting and ledger systems. So, it allows us to effectively provide information into their accounting and ledger systems without any human intervention and allows them to continue to run their treasury on a day-to-day basis.
So, I would say, it’s all of the work that we’ve done to build this ecosystem around network, capabilities, connectivity and trust, that allows us to continue to project that engagement with our clients.
Susan Katzke
You have all these interesting analogies now running in my head because you said you were the front door for Citi, and I feel like what you’re telling us you walk in that front door and you kind of — you take your seat at the table and you’re not moving.
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. I think that’s precisely it. So, I think as you’ve said, if you think about how we engage and how we win with clients. One of the facts that I’ll share with you without sharing numbers is that a significant number of our new wins every year comes from clients that we term as defend, where our share of wallet is significantly high, and it’s those clients giving us repeat business every year, because, as I mentioned, as they grow their business, we’re effectively growing with them.
So, as I said, these Fortune 500 companies, some of the smartest folks in the room, some of the biggest folks in the room, as long as we continue to stay engaged with them and are delivering what they expect, both from capital extension and from liquidity management, working capital management standpoint, I think generally speaking, it becomes a self-fulfilling circular argument where we are ending up being part of their intrinsic operating system.
Susan Katzke
That’s a perfect place to be. So, let’s talk then about a few numbers as we work to wrap this up a little bit. In terms of — the business has generated a 20%, 20%-plus return on tangible common equity. Do you see any challenge to the RWA density or capital intensity of the business? Or the 20% is a sustainable return?
Shahmir Khaliq
Well, I think if you look at our averages in our business, I’m giving you some averages, if you look at our averages in the business for the last four or five years, we’ve generally averaged around the same number that we gave Investor Day guidance on, which was the low to mid kind of 20%-s number, which is what we projected. Obviously, as you see NII rise, you’re going to see a higher RoTCE number, right? But as rates normalize, and we’re not expecting rates to go back to where they were, let’s say, five, six, seven years ago, and that’s why I’m using the word normalize as opposed to reduce, I think we’re still going to continue to see the same level of RoTCE.
We feel very confident about what we put out there for Investor Day, and that’s how we’re looking to model our business on a go-forward basis. So, we do not expect any significant changes at all. That’s where we look to continue. It’s always a balancing fact between revenue growth and producing more RoTCE. We’re very much in making sure, while we continue this growth agenda, we are continuing to manage RoTCE within this band that we have set up.
Susan Katzke
Okay. Consistency. So, wrapping up here, we covered a lot of ground. You’ve been now at Citi for roughly 30 years. Can you tell us about how — maybe how you’re running TTS differently? And what if we kind of think back over the 30 years, you’ve seen a lot at Citi. I’ve seen a lot at Citi alongside you seeing a lot at Citi. I want to hear what you think is really different and changing at Citi today?
Shahmir Khaliq
Yes. So, I think the first thing I would say is I’ve never seen — under Jane’s leadership, I’ve never seen a greater focus on execution, an urgency that I’ve been — and I’ve been here for 30 years in various different roles. But the focus on execution and with the urgency to execute and to be accountable, I would say, has never been higher. So, as a senior manager, I’m accountable for making sure we deliver on the numbers that we are committed to deliver. As I mentioned, we’re ahead of plan. We’re pushing ourselves to continue to execute on that agenda, while continuing to meet the financial RoTCE metrics and operational efficiency metrics that we’ve set out ourselves in the public domain.
The second thing, I think, is that the focus at Citi around making it a simpler, more transformative and technology-led institution have never been higher. As I mentioned, a lot of the investment we’ve done in TTS is basically to keep our network and to make sure that our network stays resilient. We simplify the network. We build capabilities in our network. We invest in client experience, and we continue to do all things that are really mission-critical for us to achieve the agenda. I would say that focus and the provision of capital and having the clarity of vision around which businesses to fund and how, I think has never been better.
Obviously, I speak from my particular seat but also a broader perspective as part of the management, as part of the institutional bank’s management team. So, I feel particularly, I would say, very quietly confident about our agenda and what we’re looking to execute and hopefully get done over the next two to three years. Lots to do for us, but significant upside for the firm.
Susan Katzke
Wonderful. I think this is a good place to wrap this up. Thank you for joining us and really sharing your perspective on TTS as well as on the broader Citigroup. Thank you so much.
Shahmir Khaliq
Thank you so much. Really appreciate it, Susan.
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